10 Steps to Building

A Marketing Plan
& Some Case Studies
Presented by:
Reg Pierce, ARM - Breckenridge IS & TMPAA
Richard Look, CBC - Vertibrands
Tripp Craig - Avizent Alternative Risk

Workshop
Sponsor
 Step One - Target Audiences

Segment and prioritize your program marketing audiences

• Retail Agents/Brokers
• Wholesalers/Intermediaries
• Affinity Groups (associations, organizations, industry groups)
• Insured end-user buyers

Who are your most important customers?

 Step Two - Customer Needs

Understanding your customer and their needs

• Customers may have different needs

– Agent/brokers want to cover their client’s exposure at a fair and reasonable price
and retain an attractive commission
– Wholesalers want good coverage for a very competitive price that will allow them to
sell in volume with a good margin
– End users want the best product coverage for the best possible price

Identify your respective customer’s “pain points”

 Step Three - Program Differentiators
Breaking down your program/product’s marketing assets & liabilities

• Conduct a SWOT analysis to objectively assess your program’s:

– Internal strengths and weaknesses versus your competitors
– External opportunities and threats that could influence your marketing

• Honest self-assessment of your program’s position in the market

– Leader - Superior product/positioning (focus on growing market and SOM)
– Challenger - Competitive product in some areas (leverage assets to overtake #1)
– Follower - “Me too” or parity product (focus is basically on surviving)
– Nicher - Own a unique market niche with few competitors (remain differentiated)

Strategically maximize assets and minimize liabilities

 Step Four - Growth Strategies
A good marketing plan is in sync with one’s business plan

• Know your company’s overall business goals

– Ideally read, but at least be knowledgeable of business plan
– Discuss your conceptual approach to your marketing plan with your
company’s principal(s) prior to full plan development
– Early buy-in from management enhances plan success

• Determine optimal marketing strategies to drive business growth

– Program awareness to specific target audience(s)
– Product leverage points (coverage/enhancements/price/etc)
– Specific marketing tools to reach specific audience(s)
– Effective messaging to appropriate audience
– Expansion of distribution channels for program/product
– Innovative new ways to reach decision makers (out of box ideas)

Think about business goals in marketing plan development

 Step Five - Communication Tools
Choose communication vehicles based on needs of marketing plan
• Website
• Online Marketing
• Trade Advertising
• Trade Show/Event Marketing
• Social Media
• Public Relations
• Speaking Engagements
• Word-of-mouth (external and internal communication)
• Special events in your area of specialty

Deploy optimal marketing mix at available budget

 Step Six - Messaging
Translating marketing strategy into strong messaging is not easy
• Articulate your program’s most important attributes
– Write all down attributes, prioritize and look for key areas of leveragability
– If you do not have a strong and distinctive positioning or tagline, create one
– When you have a central theme line, try to use it on every touch point
• Learn the strategic art of consistent messaging by selected medium
– Website content should be brief, clear and engaging AND “on message”
– Print or online graphics and copy must also be on message and consistent
– Discipline management, staff and self to always keep the message consistent

Messaging Rule #1: Speak with one voice!

 Step Seven - Budget Development
Establishing an appropriate budget and obtaining an actual budget
are often hard to agree on, especially in the insurance community
• Historically, insurance entities (carriers, service providers, PA/MGA’s) have
difficulty understanding the value of marketing dollar investment
• There is often a “gray dollars area” of what marketing dollars really are
– To many “marketing” is “pure sales event dollars”
– To others “marketing” is “communicating the sales message”
• One formula for marketing budget determination is the simple “1-2-3 Rule”
– For minimal budgets, use 1% of agency or program’s “gross revenue”
– For medium support budgets use, 2% of “gross revenue”
– For growth oriented budgets, use 3% of “gross revenue”

An intelligent marketing plan, well budgeted, will yield results

 Step Eight - Writing A Plan

Taking the time and energy to commit a marketing plan to writing

can pay dividends in several ways.

• Better organization of resources to maximize impact

- Writing down planned activity means thought has been given to ideas
- A written plan can help develop a realistic budget and help monitor it
• A marketing plan on paper naturally evolves into a calendar plan
- Use of a planning calendar again helps with budget management
- An organized calendar plan can be more easily tracked in concert with sales
• Year end, plan analysis is more accurate and helpful for next year
-Working with a plan, a budget and a calendar can dovetail with sales metrics

When you put it in writing, you are more committed!

 Step Nine - Plan Execution
If you have done a decent job on steps one to eight, step nine is
relatively easy.

• Translate written plan into marketplace action plan

- Be proactive with closing dates, event deadlines and timely opportunities
- Attention to detail in execution phase is very important
• If certain plan components do not appear to be effective
- Cut back on budget investment and possibly drop for a period of time
- In today’s fast moving marketplace, marketers need to be flexible
• On other hand, if a certain component of plan succeeds
- Shift resources and budgets to ramp up highly successful activity

Three key areas: monitor, adapt and leverage winners

 Step Ten - Measurement
The new reality in program marketing…measuring ROI

• The old marketing paradigm: spend marketing dollars only in soft markets
- A great many PA/MGA’s did not spend marketing dollars in “good times”
- This phenomenon had near term ROI advantages but less over time
- The ability to sustain growth is steady messaging to both prospects and customers
• The new marketing paradigm: design/execute smart marketing with metrics
- Invest in a good mix of media, online strategies and message management
- Explore the new media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and managed blogs)
- Determine evaluation criteria (qualitative and quantitative) upfront (write them down)
- Target to do quarterly snapshots and year-end in-depth analyses

Present your findings (good & bad) to management --

you will earn respect and more support going forward
 Some Summary Thoughts
Today’s successful PA/MGA’s are employing a wide
range of marketing tools all aimed at:

• Building a favorable image of their agency and its products

• Reaching a multitude of audiences in a cost-effective manner
• Creating a personality for their brand with a consistent story

Smart marketing is retaining customers, inviting new prospects to

understand your offerings and providing content on many touch points
(online, on social networks, in print, in business publication articles, in
insurance meetings, inside insurance companies and among the staffs of
many insurance service providers)

Now, let’s review some marketplace case studies

 Mature Program: Golf & Country Clubs
Preferred Club Program (PCP) Background
• Program started in 1994 with 30 PA golf clubs seeking affordable coverage
• Targeted private, semi-private, daily-fee and golf management companies
• Initially, mono-line workers’ compensation only (two-tier carrier alignment)
• Expanded in 1997 with Club Package and D&O coverage
• Difficult risk to underwrite due to mix of complex exposures (EPA, waitstaff, etc.)
• PCP is today one of the longest-running club programs and well-known for its
focus on loss prevention and loss control services
 Mature Program: Golf & Country Clubs

PCP Evaluation and Implemented Marketing Plan Strategies

• Promotes a two-tier target audience sales proposition
• Independent brokers/agents (60%)
• Clubs, end-users/buyers (40%)
• “Push-Pull” marketing messages based on audience
• Broker/agents – focus on unique “3 proprietary markets” advantage
• End-users/buyers – focus on “best-in-class” marketing positioning
• Has established broad marketplace reach in a variety of media:
• Company website, program websites, third-party emails, & in-house direct
marketing initiatives
• High quality, customizable sales sheets to co-brand with brokers (CAST)
• Content management through whitepapers, by-line articles (by club experts), Public
Relations, and educational events
• Trade and association show participation, including booths and signage
Mature Program: Golf & Country Clubs
Samples of PCP Marketing Materials (for brokers)

Program Specific Website

 Mature Program: Golf & Country Clubs

Samples of PCP Marketing Materials (for brokers)

Print Ad

Email Customizable
Sales Sheet (CAST)
Mature Program: Golf & Country Clubs
Samples of PCP Marketing Materials (for insureds)

Banner Ad Banner Ad

Fractional
Page Ad
Mature Program: Golf & Country Clubs
Samples of PCP Marketing Materials (for insureds)

By-line Articles/PR

Whitepaper
 Mature Program: Golf & Country Clubs

Preferred Club Recent Results

• Current 2011 policyholder roster is 1,100 clubs
• Total gross premium is approximately $45 million
• Market Penetration – Preferred Club insures:
- 25% of the private golf clubs in the U.S.
- 17% of the semi-private golf clubs in the U.S.
- 5% of the daily-fee golf courses in the U.S.
- 8 of the top 18 “golf management companies” (defined as
managing two or more clubs) representing over 400 golf courses
 Re-branded Program: Hairdressers
SASSI Hairdressers Program Background

• Original “Hairdressers Agency” insurance service founded in 1929

• Successful direct-to-insured underwriting model for 70 years
• Beauty parlors evolved to salons with growing Asian-ownership trend in 1990s
• Purchased by the Brownyard Group in 2002
• Opened to brokers in 2003 with marginal gains in premium growth
• Restructured program components to better appeal to direct buyers and
brokers in 2009
 Re-branded Program: Hairdressers
New Program and Introduction of New Marketing Strategy

• Created the SASSI Agency in 2009 (Salon & Spa Specialty

Insurance)
• Rebranded and repositioned as a more “hip” and contemporary
program
• Designed new brand’s imagery and color pallet to appeal to modern
salons
• Rejuvenated communication strategies for dual target audiences
• Evolved traditional direct marketing to a focus on online messaging
• Program now directs duel messaging via a mix of marketing vehicles:
- New website
- Online advertising (banner, button, panel, etc.)
- Email blasts
- Social media strategies
- Association sponsorships
Re-branded Program: Hairdressers

Samples of SASSI Marketing Materials

Original Identity Re-branded Identity

Re-branded Program: Hairdressers

Samples of SASSI Marketing Materials

Website
Re-branded Program: Hairdressers
Samples of SASSI Marketing Materials

 

50x50 Pixel Online Button Ad

Print Ad
 Re-branded Program: Hairdressers

Recent Results for SASSI Agency Program

• SASSI brand better identifies with broad-minded, multi-cultural

industry
• Better positioned against wholesale BOP products
• 3,000 unique website visits in first month of re-brand launch
• First year as SASSI witnessed a 45% increase in submissions
• First year as SASSI resulted in a 35% increase in gross written
premium
• Reestablished program as market leader
You made an investment in your program.

Your book is profitable…now what?

 ART: An Evolving Solution

What is alternative risk transfer?

• A method of protecting assets using non-traditional techniques
to provide risk bearing entities with coverage or protection
 Opportunities for PA’s & MGA’s

• Ideal for specialized niche books of business

• Asset control and protection
– Program data, intellectual capital, systems
– Direct access to reinsurance markets
– Traditionally “edgy” exposures (roofing, taxicabs, asbestos,etc.)
– Third party vendor selection
– Strategic financial planning
 Program and ART Synergies

Samples of program risk/ART synergies

• PA/MGA’s seeking long term solutions and partnerships
• Clients willing to assume a portion of their risk for reward
• Like insureds not fitting into the traditional underwriting box
• Typically, PA/MGA’s entrepreneurs know their product and
marketplace better than most of the traditional market
 Getting StARTed

Basic steps towards putting a program together

• Feasibility Study
• Business plan and underwriting submission
• Fronting and reinsurance
• Vendor selection
• Incorporation, capitalization and implementation
 Case History

• Challenge: Program stability and control

– Book of business written by multiple carriers in bundled programs
– Administrative and system challenges
– No ability to exert control over claims/loss control

• Solution
– Reduced number of carriers and administrative costs
– Program terms based on loss sensitive vs. class sensitive
– Third party vendor selection and control
– Increased revenues and ROI, strategic financial planning
 Summary

• Opportunity to participate in program design,

implementation and monitoring
• Access to 100% of underwriting profits and
investment income
• Control of assets
• Financial planning/wealth transfer
Questions & Answers

Thank you